Rock of Ages Read online

  “What exactly was taken from the Louvre?” Lord Huyghe asked.

  Przemysl cast a knowing glance at Maijstral. “A painting undergoing cleaning and restoration,” he said. “Titian’s Man with a Glove.”

  “Ah yes,” Huyghe said. “I’d marked its absence.” Bootheels clicked on the dining room floor as a tall, frowning police officer stalked into the room. She was human, with blondish hair tucked, somewhat unsuccessfully, into a gleaming black-visored helmet more suitable to the Dread Squad of the Constellation Death Commandos than to a public servant approaching a person of distinction at his dinner. Her face was chiseled. Her manner was correct, but curt. Her uniform was of black leather and had many gleaming buttons. The others rose as she marched to Lord Huyghe’s elbow. She saluted.

  “Sir,” she said, speaking Human Standard, “I am Colonel-General Denise Vandergilt. I would like to request permission for police to inspect the paintings in your gallery in order to make certain that the stolen picture is not hidden beneath them.”

  Lord Huyghe frowned and spoke in his normal booming conversational tones. Maijstral had to offer-reluctant congratulations to Vandergilt for the fact she didn’t leap back, flinch, or assume she was about to be assaulted and draw her pistol.

  “What means do you intend to use?” Huyghe roared.

  “For the inspection? Passive broadband fluorocameras. No injury to your canvases is possible.”

  “Ah. Very well.” Huyghe waved his napkin, a signal for the other diners to resume their seats. “As you like, then.”

  Vandergilt’s expression grew abstract for a moment as she pulsed silent commands to her troops through her in-the-helmet scrambler.

  Lady Huyghe lowered her spoon and pricked her ears forward. She was a quiet woman, perhaps as a result of her husband shouting at her all these years, and when she spoke it was generally to the point.

  “Colonel-General?” she said. “I don’t believe that is a rank in the local constabulary, is it?”

  “I am a member of the Constellation Special Services Corps, ma’am,” Vandergilt said.

  “The Colonel-General came here specially from Beijing,” Przemysl said. His expression invited sympathy from the diners.

  “And what precisely,” Lady Huyghe asked, “does the Special Services Corps do?”

  Vandergilt noticed that a disobedient strand of hair had drooped out from under her helmet, “We maintain the political security of the Human Constellation against foreign and domestic threats, ma’am,” she said, stuffing hair into her helmet with one efficient black-gloved hand, “and investigate those deemed worthy of special interest to the Administration.”

  “Gracious,” Lady Huyghe blinked. She turned to her husband. “Do you suppose there might be anyone of that description at our table?”

  Vandergilt frowned. “If you won’t mind an observation, ma’am, I am surprised that the owners of a select art collection such as yourself and, ah, Mr. Huyghe, would have as your houseguest a person whose profession it is to steal.”

  “Ha!” Lord Huyghe said abruptly. Vandergilt gave a little start, as if a pistol had just gone off near her ear. A strand of blond hair fell in her eyes.

  “Maijstral’s father and I were at school together,” Huyghe said. “It’s natural to offer hospitality to the son of an old friend.”

  “And of course I wouldn’t steal from my host,” Maijstral said. “That would be rude.”

  “And the name’s Behrens, by the way,” Huyghe added. “Anthony Behrens. Huyghe’s just the title.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Behrens,” Vandergilt said. She tried, arid failed, to stuff the strand of hair back in her helmet. “I appreciate your reminding me that the title is, in the Constellation, only a courtesy.”

  Lady Huyghe frowned gently. “I believe,” she said, “that courtesy is the operative word.”

  Vandergilt flushed. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Lord and Lady Huyghe, and, watching her, Maijstral suspected she would be opening a file on them the second she returned to Beijing. Maijstral’s father had been a notorious Imperialist, and now it seemed likely that Gustav Maijstral’s school chum and his wife were about to suffer a case of dossier-by-association.

  “Flattered as I am by the attention,” Maijstral said, “I wonder how I merit it. How does being an Allowed Burglar—an occupation perfectly legal under Constellation law—somehow merit this, ah, special interest of nothing less than a full Colonel-General?”

  “We do not believe,” Vandergilt said, “that an inhuman sport like Allowed Burglary will be legal for long. And even Allowed Burglary permits me to arrest you if I catch you in the act or shortly thereafter.”

  Maijstral’s ears flattened. His green eyes glittered under his lazy eyelids. “I hope I shall be able to offer you and your people sufficient exercise,” he said.

  Przemysl beamed at him from across the table, and Maijstral sensed approval from Lord and Lady Huyghe. No doubt, he thought, they were anticipating Maijstral’s leading this officious officer in a merry chase from vault to hideout and back again.

  Maijstral knew he did not deserve the credit granted him by his fellow diners. He was damned if he was going to steal anything while a leather-clad fanatic like this was lurking about, just waiting to drag him off to Beijing and drop him in a lightless dungeon, no doubt one equipped with fetters, damp straw, rats, and other traditional paraphernalia…

  Vandergilt drew herself up. She knew a challenge when she heard one. “We have no intention, you see,” she declaimed, “of allowing a notorious character such as yourself to plunder the heritage of the Human Constellation for his own aggrandizement.” Her black-gloved hand rose, hesitated.

  “Would you like a pin, dear?” Lady Huyghe asked.

  “No. Thank you. If you’ll excuse me, Mr. and Mrs. Behrens?”

  She turned on her heel and stalked off. Lord Huyghe gave a sigh. “Thank the Virtues,” he said, “she was only here for the soup course.”

  *

  The police withdrew just as the meal got to its brandy-and-cigars stage, something that disappointed old Przemysl, who had only got halfway through his Monte Cristo before he had to leave.

  “I like the fellow, you know,” Huyghe said as he settled back into his chair, “but I’m rather glad he’s gone. There are a few things I’d like to discuss with you, Drake, if you’ve no objection.”

  “None at all,” Maijstral said. “By the way, is that a Jasper in the corner?”

  Huyghe smiled. “It is indeed. An atypical piece—you have a good eye.”

  “I didn’t know you collected moderns.”

  Lady Huyghe tapped ash from her Cohima and contemplated the brandy in her snifter. “My taste, actually,” she said. “The piece struck my fancy years ago, and Tony bought it for my birthday.”

  “How thoughtful,” Maijstral said.

  “I was wondering, Drake,” Huyghe said, “if you’d be interested in any commissions while you’re here. There are some pieces in private collections that I’m itching to get a look at, but their owners are quite reclusive, and I’m afraid the only way I’ll ever see them is if I arrange for them to . . . “ He tapped cigar ash. “To appear in my own collection,” he finished.

  “I’d love to oblige,” Maijstral said, “but my stay on Earth already suffers from an overfull programme. Perhaps I can give you an introduction to someone in the burglar line who will be able to accommodate you.”

  “I’d appreciate that very much.” A light glowed in Huyghe’s eyes. “I imagine you’ve got quite a few surprises planned for that Vandergilt character, eh?”

  Maijstral smiled thinly. “Ye-es,” he drawled. Not the least of which, he considered, was the fact he wouldn’t be stealing anything at all while he was here.

  Later that evening, Maijstral politely sniffed Lord Huyghe’s ears and Lady Huyghe’s wrist, then returned to his chambers determined to order Drexler and Roman to get rid of all the burglar equipment for the length of time they stayed on Earth. No point i
n getting arrested for carrying gear he had no intention of using, and which might be technically illegal in some jurisdiction or other.

  Maijstral opened his door and told the room to turn on the lights. He looked up and his heart gave a leap of terror. He stared at his dresser and only managed to avoid gibbering because he was speechless with fear.

  Atop his dresser, fresh from cleaning and restoration, was Titian’s Man with a Glove.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sweat prickled on Maijstral’s scalp. He was being set up. He pictured Colonel-General Vandergilt kicking in the door with her heavy black boots, smiling an evil smile as she raised her mapper and squeezed the trigger. Caught red-handed, she’d say, too bad he tried to escape…

  Maijstral turned to the service plate, intending to summon Roman and have his servant somehow get the painting away.

  “Hallo,” said a voice. Maijstral spun around and winced as a brass doorknob punched his kidney. In an upper corner of the room, colors shifted as the holographic projectors of a darksuit turned themselves off to reveal a small woman, hand raised in a cheerful wave.

  “Sorry if I startled you,” she said. She floated to the floor a few feet in front of Maijstral. “I just wanted to show you my bag from the Louvre.”

  Maijstral made an effort to move his thrashing heart from his throat to a more conventional location. “You’ve shown it to me,” Maijstral said. “Now please leave.”

  The woman held out her hand. “Conchita Sparrow,” she said. “Pleased to meet you.”

  Her accent was uncouth and her hair was arranged in a kind of informal, outlandish dorsal fin on top of her head, perhaps in hope of making her seem taller. Her face was bright-eyed and pleasant, though not beautiful. Maijstral hesitantly reached out a hand, offered her a cautious one-fingered handclasp. She gave him two fingers in return, a presumption of a greater intimacy than Maijstral was willing, given the circumstances, to contemplate.

  “Actually,” she said, “I was looking for a tech designer job. I thought you might be more interested in looking at my recordings if I showed you how useful I could be.”

  Maijstral’s eyes—wide open for once—moved to the Titian. “You may have proved far more useful to the police than to me,” he said. “They were just here looking for that painting.”

  “I know,” she grinned. “I saw them leave. Don’t worry—they didn’t see me. Especially not those two clots out in the thorn bushes—they couldn’t skulk their way out of a dead people’s convention. The only person who saw me was one of your people, the one in the darksuit, and he took off.”

  A cold finger touched Maijstral on the neck. “A darksuit?” he asked.

  “Yeah. A good one—most detectors wouldn’t have spotted it, but mine did. He flew in just after the cops left—he stopped at your window, looked in for a moment, then flew on. That’s when he saw me and flew off.”

  “A moment, Miss Sparrow,” Maijstral said. He reached to the wall by the door and touched the service plate. “Roman? Drexler? Were either of you just out on the grounds?”

  The answers were negative. Maijstral turned to Conchita Sparrow.

  “I’ll look at your recordings if you like,” he said, “but that person lurking around outside was probably a member of the Special Services Corps, and will be very happy to send me to prison for possession of that painting. So if you would oblige me by taking it very far away, I’ll be in your debt.”

  “Only too,” Conchita said, meaning Only too happy. Maijstral raised an eyebrow at this cheeky piece of cant.

  Conchita stepped toward the paintings, took a bag out of her darksuit,. and slipped it over the painting. Once bagged, the painting levitated as of its own free will, then followed Conchita to the window. Before she slipped through the drape she turned on the holo projectors of her darksuit, and blended almost indistinguishably with the background.

  “The recordings are in your upper right drawer,” she said. “Happy to’ve met you!”

  The drapes parted, the window opened, and out she flew.

  Maijstral went to his, bureau drawer, saw a recording sphere lying there, and then marched to the service plate to summon Roman and Drexler.

  They searched Maijstral’s. room for the nest hour, but found no more surprises.

  *

  Next morning. Maijstral bade farewell to Lord and Lady Huyghe and set off for North America. Once airborne, Maijstral put his car on autopilot and reviewed Conchita’s recordings with Roman and Drexler. He understood why she was seeking employment as a tech. Though her equipment was first-rate—her black boxes always worked, and her darksuit’s equipment wove an elegant path through a wide assortment of alarms—she was nevertheless a very poor thief. She was nervous: she dropped things, or performed operations in the wrong order and had to start over, and once she forgot to tell her darksuit to neutralize a set of flaxes and had to fly in disarray when the alarms began to ring.

  “She’s a disaster,” Drexler snickered, as he watched Conchita head for the horizon.

  “Still,” Roman said, “she would not be employed for-her abilities as a thief. Her gear really is her strong point—it works flawlessly.”

  “When she remembers to use it,” Drexler grinned, his tongue lolling. “She hasn’t done anything I can’t do. And besides, what happens if you need her to pinch something for you?”

  “Quite,” Maijstral said.

  Drexler might lack a certain bonhomie, he reflected, but at least he didn’t show up uninvited in one’s bedroom with a stolen art treasure moments after irksomely fanatic police decided to search the place.

  “Roman,” he said, “put Sparrow in the file. We might hand her some contract work if Drexler is ever overburdened.”

  “I won’t be overburdened at the rate we’re going, Mr. Maijstral,” Drexler said. “When are we going to steal something really big?”

  “After vacation,” Maijstral said, and was aware of Drexler’s diaphragm pulsing in resignation.

  Let it pulse, he thought. Drexler hadn’t met Colonel-General Vandergilt.

  *

  “Maijstral,” said Prince Joseph Bob, “I don’t believe you’ve met my family.”

  “Haven’t had the pleasure.”

  The young Lord Joseph Bob had been one of Maijstral’s school friends at the Nnoivarl Academy. He hadn’t changed much in the last twelve years—he was still tall and rangy and blond, and he still looked every bit the champion athlete he had been in school. The best pistol shot in the Academy, a top sabre man on the fencing team, a first-class swimmer, an excellent jumper and runner, first prize for debate . . . the list of accomplishments went on and on.

  His huge house south of Fort Worth was situated on an estate that stretched as far as the hill country west of Austin. The drawing room, where Maijstral was meeting the Prince’s family, seemed to range at least half that distance.

  “This is my wife, Arlette,” Joseph Bob said.

  “Charmed.”

  The marriage was less than a year old, and it was clear to Maijstral that they would have beautiful children. Princess Arlette—the media called her “Lady Bob”—was almost as tall as her husband, with honey-colored hair and large dark eyes. Maijstral gave her two fingers in handclasp and sniffed her wrist and ears.

  “Joe’s told me a lot about you,” Arlette said.

  “Oh dear.”

  “He was very complimentary.”

  Maijstral smiled. “Of course, he never knew me well.”

  “And this,” said Joseph Bob, “is my brother Will.”

  “Ah,” Maijstral said, “the Bubber.”

  Just as the brother of King Louis always assumed the title Monsieur, the brother of the Prince of Tejas was always the Bubber (the r, with genteel courtesy, is almost silent). Maijstral, acquainted only through his brother, sniffed his ears, offered him a modest two fingers, and received three informal digits in return.

  “Do you still do card tricks?” the Bubber asked. He was neither as tall nor as rangy
nor as blond as his brother, though his expression was more genial. He had come into the Nnoivarl Academy the year Maijstral left, and Maijstral had never really known him.

  “Of course,” Maijstral said.

  “Joe always said you were good.”

  “After supper, if you like.”

  “That would be delightful. Thank you.”

  Maijstral made a mental note to tell Roman to lay out the dinner jacket with the trick pockets. He turned to the Prince.

  “I was wondering if I might ask a favor,” he said.

  “Of course.”

  “While I’m here, I’d like to learn to ride a horse.”

  “Really?” The Prince seemed faintly surprised. “Very well, if you like. Will can set you up—he’s in charge of the stables.”

  “Sir.” Joseph Bob’s butler appeared in the doorway. “There is a slight disturbance at the front gate. Newton has apprehended a pair of interlopers who claim to be lost. They also claim to be police.”

  “Lost?” the Prince said. “On my property?”

  Maijstral gave a sigh. “J.B.,” he said, “I suppose I had better tell you about Colonel-General Vandergilt.”

  *

  Later, as Maijstral went to his quarters to dress for supper, he turned a corner in the hallway and received a start. Coming toward him was a short, nondescript man in a green jacket.

  “Mr. Kuusinen,” Maijstral said, and offered two fingers.

  “Your servant, sir. I’m pleased you remembered my name.” Kuusinen gave two fingers in return and sniffed Maijstral’s ears.

  Maijstral was not likely to forget the name of Paavo Kuusinen anytime soon. The man had a habit of turning up. Twice now, on Peleng and again on Silverside Station, Kuusinen had been a part of adventures Maijstral would just as soon forget.